Rev. H. B. Tristram on the Ornithology of Palestine. 87 
identity, and the mistake in Jerdon's * Birds of India * has been 
corrected in the list of errata to his first volume. 
Although with a very wide range, this Kingfisher is strictly 
Asiatic, being only a doubtful straggler to Europe, and never 
reported from Africa. Its habits in the Holy Land show it to 
be much more strictly tropical than the last species. We never 
found it beyond the limits of the Jordan valley; but Russell* s 
mention of it, as well as its existence in Asia Minor, show that 
it is not exclusively tropical in its habitat. Unlike the other 
peculiar species of the Ghor, it occurs throughout the whole 
course of the river, and we met with it close to Banias, on the 
upper waters of the Jordan. It is in all its habits very different 
from the lively Pied Kingfisher. It never hovers, never is seen 
in the open ground, but loves to sit moodily for hours on a 
slender bough overhanging a swamp or pool, where the foliage 
helps to conceal its brilliant plumage, and where, with cast-down 
eyes and bill leaning on its breast, its seems benumbed or sleepy, 
until the motions of some lizard or frog in the marsh beneath 
rouse it to temporary activity. When disturbed, it rather slinks 
away under the cover of the overhanging oleanders than trusts 
for safety to direct flight. Nor does it confine itself to ponds or 
marshes; but frequently it will perch on a bush in a barley-field 
watching for lizards or snakes, and always bringing its prey back 
to its perch to devour at its leisure. It will swallow entire very 
large reptiles. In one I found a snake eighteen inches long, entire; 
but I never found in its crop any fish, though it had frequently fed 
on locusts—most generally, however, on reptiles, whether frogs, 
toads, lizards, or serpents. It is not gregarious, and we seldom 
saw more than two together. It is both sedentary and sluggish 
in its habits, though very wary. 
The first specimens we obtained were at Jericho, in January, 
where it resorted to the jujube-trees overhanging the stream from 
Ain Sultan (Elisha* s fountain). Afterwards we met with it all 
round the coast of the Dead Sea, by the banks of Jordan in 
thickets, in the swamps of Huleh (Merom), by the upper Jor¬ 
dan, but especially on the plain of Gennesaret, where, on April 
28th, Mr. Bartlett took a nest of five eggs, fresh, in a hole in a 
bank about six feet high, facing, not a stream, but the lake itself. 
